Links to a lengthy interview with Richard Susskind (parts 1 and 2) who continues to provoke with his explanations of how the English market for legal services is dramatically different from that in the United States, and how the Legal Services Act presages the future on this side of the Atlantic too.

One of the unplanned advantages of federal systems appears to be the way in which they militate against reforms of professional monopolies.

Good plugs for The End of Lawyers? Rethinking the nature of legal services , Richard’s book which will be imminently published by OUP.

The most . . . [more]

About eighteen months ago I posted about various online mind-mapping tools, MindMeister among them. Updated not too long ago to include several new features, including the ability to attach files, notes, tasks and links to nodes, MindMeister offers a series of accounts from free to $6 a month for a business edition. Worth a second look, I think, if you don’t already do all your mind mapping work with the high end and expensive MindManager or the free but surprisingly good FreeMind — and maybe even if you do. . . . [more]

I spoke with Mandy Ostick, Manager, Virtual Library, Courthouse Libraries BC about their new beta web library catalogue built with Aquabrowser.

Mandy shared that Courthouse Libraries BC chose Aquabrowser because it is a web interface for data from their existing Integrated Library System (Horizon). The implementation process for Aquabrowser took about a year. Aquabrowser is a rapidly growing company which presented some time frame challenges. Mandy finds there is great potential for adding more information pieces like Federated Search and having all those tools play nicely for a one stop shop that would include the wide range of knowledge pieces . . . [more]

On Monday, November 17, 2008 Dr. Colin J. Bennett, Professor in the Department of Political Science, University of Victoria, will be speaking at the Faculty of Information, University of Toronto about identity cards in Canada. Details here and in the full press release below the fold. . . . [more]

For my must read of the week, I recommend FEED: The Razorfish Consumer Experience Report . Came across it yesterday.

Its stated mission is to help people to gain a better understanding of how technology affects today’s digital consumer experience and explore the emerging trends that will shape those experiences for years to come. It talks about the rise of search as a primary mode of navigation, the widespread adoption of Web 2.0 features and technologies, and how the increase in mainstream social media usage have fundamentally altered the consumer landscape. The main point is that for brands to remain . . . [more]

♬To everything – turn, turn, turn
There is a season – turn, turn, turn
And a time for every purpose under heaven
…
A time to gain, a time to lose..♬

Words and Music by Ecclesiastes/Seeger, recorded by The Byrds.

The one thing that none of us can bank is time. So how do we best make use of our time – especially these days – given that we have to spend a certain amount of it waiting or on trains or in transit somewhere? How can we check our email, read (and edit) attachments, check our appointments, refer to . . . [more]

Lawyers often pride themselves as being the gatekeepers to legal information. But with the proliferation of free legal citations and commentary online, some are turning to Google.

Devin Johnston, a law student at UofM and contributor at Law is Cool, has an excellent piece today, GoogleLII: Using Google to Research Case Law.

He outlines some basic techniques like advance searches, and the quality of information found on the net.

Devin does say that Googling is not appropriate for traditional legal practice. But Prof. Moin Yahya of the University of Alberta also noted earlier this year that the failure . . . [more]

I am usually used to picking up on spam from a mile away. But the email message in my box this morning had me pause for a moment–perhaps it was legitimate? A quick search on the web, however, showed it to be a new type of scam, possibly as recent as March. This was the message I received from a company called “Asia DNR”:

Subject: Crosbygroup-Intellectual property rights (To President/CEO)

Dear President/CEO:

We are the domain name registration organization in Asia, which is mainly responsible for domain name registration and dispute. We have some points need to confirm with your

This is not new to Slaw but I certainly want to join the chorus. Two weeks ago I went Mac, and after about a day of adjustment I have never looked back. Even after two weeks I’m finding it odd to sit down at a PC. I love my Mac. Traditionally, the conventional wisdom has been that PCs are better for the “office” and Macs are better for “creative” work. I don’t see it. The Mac is better, period. I’ve known this for awhile but held off on going Mac for a variety of reasons but now I couldn’t be . . . [more]

Expect a version of Firefox capable of running on your mobile. Code named Fennec, the mini-browser is being tested on various platforms in “developer alpha” form, and likely will be available in a more stable alpha early in the new year. You can read the vision statement here. Of course, the iPhone will not be among fox friendly phones, having a developer policy that forbids browsers other than Safari, as Opera learned.

A fennec is a small fox, as you probably knew: see the Flickr collection of photos (cuteness warning!).

If you’re feeling adventurous — and . . . [more]

Well it seems as if Barack Obama might be the first black Twitter president of the United States. The Twitter blog indicates he will be the first to have an official account.

They also indicate an enormous spike in Twitter usage during the election.

Canadian politicians seem slightly ahead of the game in this respect, with our own Prime Minister having an account. But his number of followers, around 2,000 at present, pales in comparison to that of Obama with over 120,000.

Sure, we can cite population differences between Canada and the U.S., or talk about the impact of American . . . [more]

I posted on the CALL KM blog today about Mumboe. Mumboe got some press recently on Read Write Web and Technolawyer.

Mumboe is another service in the cloud. The premise of it and other contract managment tools is to take a document that a lawyer uploads, automate the indexing and extraction of critical data (times, parties, other things you ask for) and create actionable business data out of those details.

Tools like this blur the insubstantial lines between document management, knowledge management, and data mining. I wonder what other niche products will appear as cloud computing apps in . . . [more]